He had been following him for days, maybe weeks.
Time had melted into the rhythm of the march, stretched thin between the man's steady footsteps and his unwavering persistence.
Gaël still didn't know his name, but he recognized the cadence of his steps, that firm, unshakable tempo that rang out on the dirt paths like a stone metronome. That sound had become his anchor.
The landscape shifted slowly, each footfall carrying them deeper into harsher lands. The leafy forests grew sparse, giving way to windswept moors of short, brittle grass, and the hills rolled beneath leaden skies. The air, once mild, turned biting, especially at night. The cold crept under his too-thin clothes, gnawed at his skin, sank into his bones.
Gaël would curl up beside his meager fire, arms wrapped tightly around his knees, his teeth chattering despite his efforts to stay silent.
'Hang in there.' That was all he told himself. 'One step at a time.'
Fortunately, the road was never truly empty. These declining lands swarmed with Infested and Altered, abominations whose gaunt silhouettes often appeared between the trees or atop distant ridgelines, always watching for careless travelers.
Thankfully, Gaël thought, even if their presence was a constant danger to him and any lost soul, Brann's power rendered it meaningless.
Brann cut them down like the wind strips dead leaves from trees, and for Gaël, it was a chance, not just to survive, but to watch, to learn, to grasp fragments of a combat language that still eluded him.
The Brother's blade would flash, a glint of steel whispering through air, before the creatures collapsed, sliced down with clinical precision. No hesitation. No wasted movement. Just the raw efficiency of a man forged in death.
For Gaël, these skirmishes were blessings in disguise for another reason as well.
The bodies of the abominations, revolting as they were, still held scraps of flesh that could be eaten, once the corrupted parts were stripped away. The taste was torture: bitter and rancid, with an elastic texture that threatened to wrench his stomach at every bite. But when cooked long enough over flame, the meat revealed a surprising richness in nutrients.
Survive first. The rest... later.
Thanks to these vile feasts, he never had to suffer from hunger.
The cold, however, had no cure.
Despite the passing days, there remained a distance, an invisible gap the man maintained between them. The swordbrother always walked ahead, same steady pace, never too fast… but never reachable either.
A silent balance had settled between them: a shared march, yet separate. A mutual road, yet parallel paths. It was frustrating. Exhausting. And yet… Gaël couldn't stop. Not now.
'You've found a swordbrother!' The thought pounded in his mind like a war drum.
'A real one. Not a legend. Not some childhood tale. A Brother, alive. Alive and sharp.'
He clenched his fists.
'You can't give this up.'
The days blurred together, indistinct, a succession of shifting landscapes and heavy silences.
The sky remained a dull, endless gray, and when the sun managed to pierce the clouds, it painted the world in washed-out tones, stripping all color away. Trees grew scarce, their blackened branches clawing at the sky in vain. Gaël began to lose all sense of time. Everything reduced to the ache in his feet, the wind burning his face, the fatigue soaking his muscles, and that dark silhouette ahead, always out of reach.
And then, at last, the landscape changed.
It began with scattered ruins, collapsed stone mounds poking through moss and tangled weeds.
Then the outlines of broken buildings came into view.
The city, what remained of it, lay sprawled like a gutted corpse beneath the gray sky.
Crumbling structures, shattered rooftops, walls blackened by long-past fires. Some buildings, half-swallowed by earth and rubble, looked as if they were trying to curl in on themselves beneath the weight of memory. Chipped walls bore marks of violence, circular impact scars, deep gashes that time hadn't erased.
Gaël stopped at the edge of this stone graveyard, breath short.
The air smelled of cold dust, laced with that faint, metallic tang that lingered over forgotten battlefields. Somewhere, a raven cawed, its cry echoing in the silence, mocking and grim.
Brann didn't stop. His boots crunched over the rubble, scattering bits of scorched beams and cracked stone. His gaze swept the ruins without a flicker of nostalgia.
No pause. No hesitation.
Gaël felt the question burn on his tongue.
'Why here? What is he looking for?'
But, as always… he said nothing, and simply watched.
The wind funneled through the mangled streets, kicking up swirls of dust. Shards of broken glass caught the faint light and shimmered like frost.
Gaël didn't know what waited for him here, but one thing was certain: these ruins weren't just broken stone. They held stories. Secrets. And maybe… ghosts.
And Brann, that unshakable swordbrother, walked straight toward them.
One night, the man came to his campfire.
The crunch of heavy footsteps on gravel warned him before he looked up. There he stood, imposing, his silhouette casting a flickering shadow in the fire's glow.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and in the dancing light, he seemed even more formidable, almost unreal.
In his hand, he held something. A rough animal pelt.
Without a word, he dropped it at Gaël's feet. The thick fur hit the cold stone with a soft, solid thump.
"Here. It'll keep you warm."
Gaël blinked, startled.
He opened his mouth to reply, but the man had already turned away, heading back toward his own camp without so much as a glance. His dark cloak, thick with Umbra, billowed behind him like a living shadow.
Gaël looked down at the pelt, then slowly reached out and brushed it with tentative fingers.
The fur was coarse, but warm, far thicker than anything he'd had to shield him from the freezing night.
He inhaled deeply, clutching the pelt in both hands.
It wasn't much. Just a gesture. Almost nothing.
But it meant he'd been seen.
And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be ignored forever.
He wrapped the pelt around his shoulders and stared into the flames, a faint light kindling in his eyes.
The silence of night closed in around them, but something had shifted.
A bridge, fragile as it was, had been laid.